Two worlds collide for just a moment: An old man growing younger in age but older in mind and a young woman maturing beautifully in both mind and physique. For just a few minutes of screen time, life appears perfectly normal for this enigma of a man. For the rest of the movie though, the character a cipher.
This is the framework for director David Fincher’s (“Fight Club,” “Zodiac”) newest film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. The book, originally written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was adapted for the screen by Eric Roth (“Forrest Gump”). I’m a big fan of both Fincher and Roth, so I went in expecting something very well done. Unfortunately, it was a bit under-cooked even with the two-hour and forty-five minute running time.
The story begins with a monstrosity of a baby being born to the well-to-do Button family. The baby is anonymously dropped off on patio steps by a father in distress to be raised by an authentically loving caretaker in charge of a nursing home in New Orleans. Queenie is this black caretaker, superbly acted as the most compelling character in the film by Taraji P. Henson. Baby Benjamin (Brad Pitt) grows up, or grows down rather, in the company of elderly folk, perpetually moving in and dying off like the ebb and flow of the sea.
While the movie hardly devotes much of its screen time to her, the main plot focuses on the short-lived romance between Benjamin and Daisy, a free-spirited, worldly dancer. She first meets Benjamin while visiting her grandmother at the nursing home, and though they are separated by their appearances, we know they are meant for each other from the start. The great Oscar-winning Cate Blanchett plays Daisy from her teens to her very old wrinkled deathbed during Hurricane Katrina, just like Pitt plays Benjamin for the majority of life, just backward.
The problem with the movie is that story really isn’t that gripping, except for the fact that this anomaly is somehow growing younger. Nothing particularly absorbing or life-changing happens. Even the plot line about a tugboat fighting in WWI isn’t all that intense. The only curious part of the movie is how it redefines age by making it purely state of mind. At the end of the movie, Benjamin appears to be a five-year-old kid suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Pitt delivers a very standard, bland performance without ever digging into the depths of his character’s psychology. Perhaps this is the director’s fault, because Fincher never once explores the internal Benjamin, instead passing over the intimate psychological details as if everything is perfectly normal. I think Benjamin’s biggest problem in the movie is that he hadn’t been laid yet at age 60. All things put aside, the CGI makeup for his character is absolutely outstanding and deserves to be the one and only award given to multi-nominated “Benjamin Button.”
Just like Pitt’s character would have been more compelling if we saw into his life, the story may have been more touching and relatable if it focused on personal, intimate details rather than covering such a broad lifespan in such a short period of time.
Fincher, or Roth’s adaptation of the short story, just tries to cover too much in one movie. “Button” spends so little time developing inner-relationships and stories because it’s always thinking about what to do next. Yet, some parts seemed to drag on, almost forced in just to be able to show some interesting cinematography.
The most rewarding part of the story, and indeed the most romantic part, is Benjamin’s interlude with a married woman (Tilda Swinton) who, disappointed in the banality of life, has a passion to swim the English Channel. This romance, for me, was more believable and developed than that with Daisy. In contrast, Fincher deals with Benjamin and Daisy’s romance on a very superficial level, only becoming meaningful when the elder Daisy must take care of the five-year-old senile boy Benjamin becomes.
It’s an interesting story, and I do love fantasies, except this one didn’t have anything compelling enough to reach my emotions. On a completely superficial level, I would say it an entertaining idea but when it comes down to it, the movie just isn’t all that great.
